Jerusalemin Visual Drama in the East and West

Abstract

The television and the cinema are considered two of the most important tools for creating stereotypes and shaping public awareness of current issue. When it comes to Jerusalem, a typical image of this holy city that is widely spread in western media almost contradicts that presented by the eastern media This paper studies the image of Jerusalem in Eastern and Western media. Some of the effective drama makers have been chosen for this study, namely, American Turkish, Egyptian and Syrian drama producers. Cases of each one of the above-mentioned dramatic works have been studied and compared with the historical and current realty in Jerusalem, in order to study how these work shape the image of the holy city. Five dramatic works that cover two important historical periods in the history of Jerusalem, namely the Crusades and the current Israeli occupation, have been selected for this study. Works that represent the Crusades include the American movie Kingdom of Heaven, the Egyptian movie al-Nasır Salah al-Din and the Syrian Tv Series Salah al-din Ayyubi. As for this current situation in Jerusalem, the American Movie Word War Z and the Turkish movie Kurtlar Vadisi Filistin (The Valley of the Wolves Palestine) have been studied.

Keywords

• Jerusalemin,Drama,Crusades

References

1. See Edbury, Peter W. John of Ibelin and the Kingdom of Jerusalem. 1997. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press,